Josh Rouse

Joe's Pub

February 24

Doors at 9PMShow at 9:30PM

Never one to ignore the call of his muse, Rouse traded in his trusty acoustic guitar for a synthesizer, a move that quickly pulled him in a slew of exciting, unexpected directions as he found himself freshly inspired by the endless array of possibilities at his fingertips. Where ‘Embers’ was a deeply personal, countrypolitan contemplation on identity and anxiety, the new material that poured out of him was breezier and more carefree, crafted with an 80’s-inspired sonic palette that complemented the shift from somber introspection to more playful observation. The end result, ‘Love In The Modern Age,’ is an album that still bears Rouse’s distinct fingerprints, even as it pushes his limits and forges a bold new chapter more than twenty years into his celebrated career.

Hailed as “a talent to outrank Ryan Adams or Conor Oberst” by Uncut and praised for his “spare and easy sounding guitar songs” by NPR, Rouse first emerged in 1998 with his debut album, ‘Dressed Up Like Nebraska,’ which Billboard called a “dark horse gem.” Over the next two decades, he’d go on to release a steady stream of critically lauded records that would solidify his status as one of the his generation’s most acclaimed songwriters, both in the US and Europe, where he’s lived on and off since 2004. Q called his breakout album, ‘1972,’ “the most intimate record of the year,” while Rolling Stone dubbed his follow-up, ‘Nashville,’ “a landmark album,” and EW described 2013’s ‘The Happiness Waltz’ as “a big contender for Rouse’s best work.” In 2014, Rouse won a Goya Award (the Spanish equivalent of an Oscar) for best song for “Do You Really Want To Be In Love,” from the film ‘La Gran Familia Española.

As he began work on ‘Love In The Modern Age,’ Rouse was caught in a moment of international limbo. He was ready to relocate from Spain back to Nashville with his family, but his wife’s green card process was stretching out interminably. As they awaited news from the US government, their Tennessee home sat empty for more than a year, and Rouse found himself making regular trips across the Atlantic to check in on the property.

“I started working on songs with my old friend and writing partner Daniel Tashian on those trips,” Rouse explains. “I’d just finished reading Sylvie Simmons’ great Leonard Cohen biography, ‘I’m Your Man,’ and it got me really into Cohen’s synthier records. I told Daniel that I thought it’d be fun to write some stuff in that vein, so we’d start with these moody soundscapes, and then I’d write lyrics on top of them.”

Inspired by Cohen and cult heroes The Blue Nile, as well as the English bands Rouse grew up listening to like The Cure and The Smiths, the songs were cinematic and enveloping. Each track created its own entrancing world out of dense synthesizer textures and shimmering electric guitar lines. While many of his previous albums were recorded with a full band performing live in one room, Rouse built up the tracks on ‘Love In The Modern Age’ a layer at a time, recording the majority of the instruments himself between Spain and Nashville in me that wouldn’t have happened with just an acoustic guitar.”

Much like love in our modern age, the album is defined by the coming together of those physical and digital worlds. Underneath it all, though, lays the same endless search for human connection that drives each and every one of us. Times may change, but the song remains the same.